WASHINGTON, March 1 (UPI) -- A preliminary report released Thursday on U.S. military reserve readiness finds that almost 90 percent of Army National Guard units are "not ready."
The major problem is equipment shortages after more than five years of deployment to Afghanistan and Iraq, the Washington Post reported.
"The Department of Defense is not adequately equipping the National Guard for its domestic missions," said the report by a congressional commission.
Pentagon officials assume that if the military is prepared to fight a war overseas it is also prepared to deal with domestic emergencies, the report found. Most National Guard units suffer from a shortage of equipment like Humvees and night-vision goggles that would be critical in the event of a terrorist attack or a disaster like Hurricane Katrina.
Only 3 percent of equipment funding and 8 percent of the Pentagon budget is allocated to the reserves, although more than one-third of the total military is in the reserves. The number of days of service has nearly quintupled from 12.7 million in 2001 to 63 million in 2006.
